Topsail Road Sobeys shaming fire lane offenders

A St. John's supermarket is ramping up efforts to stop drivers from parking in its fire lane.

For the past two months, Sobeys on Topsail Road has been calling out offenders by announcing their licence plate numbers over the store's intercom.

Store manager Maunda Fudge said staff are frustrated with the ignorance of such drivers.

"We need that [lane] opened up for emergency vehicles to come in. And people just jumping out of their cars and say they say, 'It's only for a minute,' but sometimes it's five, and 10, 15 minutes before they go back out to their car again," she said.

Fudge said the approach seems to be working, with one employee recently managing to get five people to move their vehicles over a two-hour period.